Jimmie Johnson's racing goals were a bit different before being stranded in 1994 in the Baja desert.
Until then, the Southern California 19-year-old, was content to run off-road races and, maybe some day, win the Baja 1000 or an off-road title.
Stuck for a day and a half in the rocky no-man's-land after driving off a ridge, Johnson revised his plans.
``I decided to go a different direction, maybe see what else there was out there in the racing world,'' Johnson said.
Johnson made a connection with then-Chevrolet racing boss Herb Fishel that eventually landed him in NASCAR's Busch Series, where he was spotted by Nextel Cup star Jeff Gordon. He introduced Johnson to team owner Rick Hendrick and became co-owner in 2002 with Hendrick of Johnson's No. 48 Chevrolet.
Johnson quickly became known as the best NASCAR driver not to have won a Cup title.
He insists he never let the onus of having lost two championships before weigh him down, and crew chief Chad Knaus and the rest of the team never let up.
``I don't see (being a perennial contender) as a burden, and I don't think anyone on our race team does,'' Johnson said after wrapping up his first Nextel Cup championship Sunday with a ninth-place finish that followed five straight top-two performances.
``It's our fifth season together,'' he continued. ``People thought and expected a lot out of us as a race team from the beginning. We never felt a burden.''
Before Sunday's triumph, Johnson came close three times, but late-season problems cost him and his team the championship.
In 2003, Matt Kenseth was too consistent, and Johnson finished second, 90 points behind. The next season, the first year of the Chase format, Johnson started the final 10 races badly but won four of the last six, losing to Kurt Busch by eight points, the closest finish in NASCAR history.
Last year, Johnson entered the final race second to Tony Stewart and seemed to have a shot at the title until a blown tire sent his car into the wall, dropping Johnson to fifth in the points.
``It was tougher in 2004, because I felt we were very competitive and had some bad luck. But we were racing our way back into it,'' Johnson said. ``I felt like 2004 was the year for us.
``There were periods in the (final) race, where I thought, `This is it, it's going to happen.' I had a tingling feeling, and I looked up in my mirror with the closing laps and the 97 (Busch), I couldn't get rid of him. That year was more painful than last year.''
After he got off to a bad start again in this year's Chase for the championship, even Gordon says he thought: ``Ah, here we go again.
``The Chase starts, and those guys had their problems,'' added Gordon, who finished sixth in the points standings. ``The one thing about those guys is you never count them out. Sometimes they do better when they're down.''
Johnson said he and his team were prepared for any eventuality Sunday, knowing a flat tire, an engine failure or a wreck would keep people talking
``Don't get me wrong. We didn't want to miss an opportunity when we were in the position to become a champion,'' he said. ``We've just been happy to win races and have the season we had. We're very proud of what we did.
``I'm not saying we would have been happy if we didn't win the championship, but, after a couple days went by, we would be able to look back and be proud of what we've done.''
Still, the ``best driver never to be a champion'' title was becoming a heavy burden.
``Now that we've won, that title can't linger around any longer,'' Johnson said.
